


it's them they know, not me

by hotdammneron



Series: and at once i knew i was not magnificent [1]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Bad Father figures, Blood, Gen, Isle of the Lost (Disney), Lots of Crying, Metaphors, Name Changes, Piracy, The power of friendship, eight year olds swearing, hand washing is a real big plot point, i might add more chapters, little kid crushes, nine year olds making bad decisions, the isle sucks, theres lots of blood. so if you're uncomfortable with that i'd swerve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 09:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11757387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotdammneron/pseuds/hotdammneron
Summary: He doesn't know why he was so afraid of her, at first. Her hair is frizzy, she’s missing one of her front teeth and it makes her syllables sound sharper in its absence. She's shorter than him, but she carries herself like a queen. He thinks he would follow her anywhere.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a precursor to my The Gang Goes To Auradon fic, since i felt bad that uma wasn't in that much, but i'm posting it separately. Who knows, I might write some more bullshit with these two as little kids, chasing each other around the shore and talking about their big ideas for the future. I probably will.
> 
> this website still doesn't let me indent my paragraphs.
> 
> My twitter is @junkeroni, and I'm pretty much always talking about making Harry sad on there, so. 
> 
> (title taken from father and son by cat stevens)
> 
> (also, just to clarify a bit, hook senior named Harry after himself, because he's a dick. chapter two tells you all about it.)

It’s cold. It’s all that James can feel, the snow soaking into the toes of his boots, a chill across his shoulders. He can’t feel his legs anymore from all the running, he doesn’t know how long he’s been at it, at this point. He doesn’t know if he needs to run anymore, or if he ever had to in the first place, if anyone is after him. He’s unsure if the man back there is still alive, even.

His foot slips in a puddle of rainwater and he hits his chin on the ground, and he can feel it bleeding from the scrape. He pushes himself back up to his feet, leaves a small print of blood on the ground where his hand was. It makes him feel sick. He stumbles on his way down the street, too exhausted to run any longer. 

Where he had only felt the cold moments earlier he can feel it all now - the guilt, the fear, the ache in his calves, the hole in his left boot, his heart pounding in his ears. He leans into the wall and turns to a narrow alley, nearly wholly dark, the stone path spotted with puddles and garbage bins that he narrowly avoids. He palms the knife in his pocket, reassured by its presence, disregarding its past. His hands feel sticky with drying blood; it’s not his own. 

James slides to the ground, landing with a thump and pressing his back against the wall of the alley. If he keeps his knees pressed close to his chest, he can keep himself small and out of sight, plus be back on his feet fast if needed. 

The steps behind him are barely audible through the crack under the door, and James scrambles out of the way and against the wall moments before the latch clicks and the door swings open. He hears the footsteps grow louder, faint humming and the drag of something against the alley floor. Holding as still as he can, trying not to breathe, to melt into the shadow of the dumpster and the night, but it doesn’t help.

“What the fuck?” Comes a voice from somewhere in front of him, and he cracks open his eyes to see someone standing, backlit by the light pooling in from the door. He presses backwards into his little corner, rubs a knuckle over his eyelids and feels it sting. 

“I have a knife, so don’t try anything,” The stranger pipes up again, shifting the weight of the bag behind her from one hand to the other. “I’m gonna put this in the dumpster there, and you’re gonna leave me alone, okay? You don’t want to mess with me.”

For all the squeak in her voice, she sounds serious, so James nods, tries to creep farther into the darkness. The girl steps around him, never turning her back to him for a second, and throws her bag of garbage in the dumpster. It hits the bottom, a resounding clang enough to make James jump, and he feels himself start to cry again, fucking baby that he is. 

“Are you… Okay?” The girl asks as she steps back towards the door, and he pauses before shaking his head. He feels angry at the sob that comes with it. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” She says, crouching down next to him. Something about her seems wary, like she knows about his father, what he’s had to do. She reaches out to him before drawing her hand back, and he wishes she had done something, brushed his knee, hit him, slapped him. “Do you want to come inside?”

James hesitates, weighing the pros and cons of going into a stranger’s house in the middle of the night, after stabbing someone in an ally and running away. Pros, he could wash some of this grime and blood from his hands and face, calm down a bit and maybe get a good meal without his father yelling at him. Cons, the girl could be a murderer for all he knows, but he’s been in proximity to his fair share of murderers, living on the Isle his whole life. He can’t walk to the dock and back without seeing someone who’s killed someone. 

He nods shakily, tears dripping down his chin. He wants to wipe them off, but he doesn’t want more blood on his face. There’s enough there already. The girl reaches out a hand to help him up, and she doesn’t flinch when his slightly wet hand touches hers, just pulls him up off the ground and helps him in through the open door. 

They’re in the back room of some kind of restaurant, plates stacked haphazardly on a shelf in the back, the sink full of water. His shoulders are shaking still, from the cold, the stress, everything. He keeps his arms crossed over his chest, like he does when his father is angry, like some type of shield. The blood drying on his palms rubs off in small flakes on his bare arms, and it itches. He wants to wash himself clean, his hands, his face, his heart, his mind. He knows that only some of this can be cleared away with just water and soap.

“There’s no bathroom, so you’ll have to wash up back here, if you want,” The girl says, and James looks at her. He isn’t sure why he was afraid before; she looks no older than he is (not that age is any indicator of one’s past), her hair is frizzy, she’s missing one of her front teeth and it makes her syllables sound sharper in its absence. She’s shorter than he is by far, but she carries herself like some kind of queen. He just nods, turns to the sink and twists the handle. The smear of dark red that comes off on the faucet makes him sick, not as much as the flow of the water turning pink as it washes over his hands. 

The girl pushes herself up onto the counter behind James, and he feels her eyes on his back. 

“What’s your name?” She asks, and he glances over his shoulder at her- legs crossed at the ankle, fingers drumming a rhythm into the counter she sits on. She said she was armed, but he isn’t nervous.

He blinks and turns back to the sink, scrubbing the blood and dirt from under his fingernails. “Harry,” He tells her, more instinct than anything. Not that he’s ever gone by Harry before, not that he hasn’t considered it, privately.

“It’s good to meet you, Harry,” The girl says with a quiet nod, kicking her heels against the face of the counter. “I’m Uma, I’d shake your hand, but, well,” She raises her right hand, caked with blood from helping him off the ground, and hops off the counter to rinse it in the flowing water of the dish sink. 

Uma shakes his hand under the faucet, their hands wet and sticking together, and James- Harry, laughs, the first real laugh he’s felt in years bubbling up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's that real real short chapter 2.... james hook the senior is a jerk. anyway, twitter is @junkeroni, i still can't indent paragraphs i <3 u all.

It feels strange to be known as ‘Harry’, but it feels far from wrong. 

James is his father’s name, passed on by a self absorbed wretch who wanted the perfect son, a younger version of himself. He expected everything of Harry; he expected him to follow exactly in his footsteps, gather his own ship, his own crew before he was grown. He wanted Harry to be the captain of his own crew, the fifth generation Captain Hook that he swore was in his destiny, until recently. It seemed so right, until he found his own captain, and he would stay by her side until the end, if she so wished.

His other option, which he toyed with at times, was Harrison. It was his middle name, given by his father in a slightly less self-absorbed move. It still doesn’t feel right. Harrison is the name of a rich and spoiled boy, one whose father’s name doesn’t have an attached warrant and body count. Someone who was allowed a real childhood, running from friends instead of running from everyone and everything that wanted him dead, someone who was allowed to be a kid without watching his back. 

Harrison could be a king, a prince, rightfully, by birth and not by means of royal murder. Harrison is a name with royal blood in its veins, not spilled across its feet and fingertips. Harrison is not the name for a boy crying into his bloodstained hands in an alley behind a restaurant because he doesn’t know what he did, doesn’t know what to do. 

Harry, though. Harry could be the name of a king, having achieved that status however he pleased. Harry is the name of a boy who doesn’t know what he’s doing, but does what he has to. It’s the name he gave to the strange girl who glared at him when she threw a bag of fish scraps into the dumpster towering over him. 

It feels better than any other name he’s heard.


End file.
